When finally Tut-Ankh-Amen's mummy was unwrapped, for the first-time the ritual known from the "Book of the Dead" was examplified in all of it's complexity. Royal mummies were wrapped in a manner to symbolize Osiris, the god of the dead. As the linen bandages, the necessary sheets and pads were removed from Tut-Ankh-Amen's mymmy 143 peices of jewelry of various religious import were discovered. On his thorax were found 5 gold collars and a rosin scarab all hung with gold wire. In the sixth and eighth layers of linen were found a gold dagger in its bolt. Over the thighs and shins were the ceremonial aprons, a sheath with iron dagger, an anklet, the Bute serpent, and the Nekhebet vulture; in the eleventh and twelvth layers of the bandages were the Kheper beetles, the Uzat eye, the solar hawk, and the Lunar crescent. Bracelets covered the mummies arms from the wrist to the elboy. The most beautiful of the peices of jewelry was the gold pectoral representing the bird that was the spirit of the king. Its outstreached wings were inlaid with turquiose, carnelian, and Lapis Lazule. The collar of the Nekhebet is a flexible pectoral of indescribable beauty. It has the form of a vulture whose outspread wings covered Tut-Ankh-Amen's chest. 225 gold plaques inlaid with semi-precious tones compose the outspread wings. Red jasper predominates on all of the five pectorals on Tut-Ankh-Amen's mummy, probably the most wonderful is that of the thre Kheper beetles, which support solar and lunar disks, and hang from then strings of gold beeds suspended from a claspe above an inscribed cartouche of the king.
[Illustration THE SACRED KHEPER BEETLE - WD]
The fourt room to be cleared (1927-1928) was piled six feet high in topsy- terviness, a perfect example ofthe way the Egyptians arranged their funerary things. Among the other things was the king's throne. Its fron panel depits Tut-Ankh-Amen and his consort Ankhsen-amen standing and facing each other. They are dressed in the court costume, but as if at a floral fete both wear garlands and collars of flowers, and the young queen hands to Tut-Ankh-Amen a bouquet of papyrus and lotus blossoms. Carter calls this panel the unsigned work of a master --- A benvenuto Cellini of the period, and perhaps the finest example of Theban art work in amoung this hoard of art treasures.
[Illustriation The NEKUBET VULTURE -WD]
A nest of anthropoid coffins, the outermost being 30 inches long, was found. Inside the second coffin was a smaller coffin of wood, 8 1/2 inches long inside of which was a tiny coffing that had on it the titles and names of Queen Nefertiti, the mother-in-law of Tut-Ankh-Amen. Inside the innermost tiny coffin, five inches long was a lock of Nefertiti's hair.
Important also, as are the objects of art, is the small wood chest which has sixteen small ritual impliments, clearly models, not real tools of iron fixed in redwood handles. In addition to these sixteen models, an amulet, headrest of iron was